So many hackers will pay tribute to the most dominant athlete of his time by wearing a red golf shirt today, as they have every Sunday since Tiger Woods started the tradition. And then those golfers take the club back and any similarity to Tiger ends.

Sunday afternoons in front of the tube have not been the same without Tiger hunting pins, birdies and trophies. What is it about most of us that makes us root for the favorite in individual sports and back the underdogs in team sports?

Now that Michael Phelps is done making a nation tune into swimming, Tiger’s absence becomes more noticeable. A Lawrence resident is as qualified as anyone to take one more look at the final holes Woods played during the 2008 golf season, before he shut it down to undergo surgery to repair a torn ACL.

Mark Woodward, then golf operations manager for the city of San Diego, was in charge of the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines. Too busy running the tournament to accept an invitation to walk inside the ropes for every hole of Tiger’s Monday playoff round with Rocco Mediate, Woodward was able to walk the final six holes, including the 19th playoff hole.

Four days later, Woodward moved to Lawrence to start his new job as CEO of the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America.

“Tiger won all four tournaments that I hosted at Torrey Pines, so I’m four for four with Tiger and I actually told him that on the 18th green when he was holding the trophy in his left hand and he shook my hand and I shook his hand,” Woodward said. “I said, ‘Tiger, I just want to let you know that you’ve won three Buicks in a row and now the U.S. Open. That’s four for four when I’m hosting.’ “

And what did Tiger say?

“He said, ‘Oh, cool,’ then he walked off,” Woodward said, laughing. “I was hoping he would say, ‘You need to be on my payroll and follow me around.’ Instead, it was “Oh, cool.’ ”

Woods’ return to the tour could come at Torrey Pines in the Buick Invitational next January. Woodward won’t be running that tournament, so his good-luck charm theory will be put to test. If Woods gets off to a slow start upon his return, he might want to consider playing a round in Lawrence with Woodward to turn his luck.

To assume Woods is superstitious would be to assume he’s human. He is. This Woodward discovered from his family.

After Tiger finished the 18th hole, Woodward saw him engaged in a “serious conversation” with high-ranking USGA official Mike Davis.

“They took off and went down the 18th fairway,” Woodward said. “The rest of us went to the seventh tee (for the 19th hole). I didn’t know what was going on. Come to find out Tiger went under the ropes exactly where my son, my daughter-in-law, my daughter, my granddaughter and my wife were all sitting. They asked them to move. They raised the ropes up and Tiger went up there and used the Porto-John.”

And then Tiger won it on No. 7 and his caddy saved that flag. What happened to the other 17 flags? Woodward reached into his desk drawer, pulled them out, and said he will try to get Tiger to sign them. Then, Woodward said, he will give them to former staffers of his who worked the U.S. Open. How cool is that?